Having only just visited Walt Disney World
Resort in Florida “properly”, I thought it would be apt to jot down some of my
initial thoughts.
Epcot was our first park. We arrived in
Orlando fairly late in the day, so it seemed logical to pick the park with the
least to actively do. To my surprise, Epcot would be a park we would revisit. I
struggled to be impressed with the dull Future World section of the park at
it’s entrance, though visiting in January without the foliage displays I’d seen
in photos was disappointing. I enjoyed how the landscape doesn’t feel like a
theme park in places, but more akin to a resort or recreational park. But I
couldn’t get past how dated parts of it look. I gather that might be half the
charm for many, or perhaps the entire point – but I find that somewhat
unconvincing logic based not on personal taste or experiences, but someone else’s
preconceived idea. Like the nonsense of “its classic, therefore it’s good”. The aquarium especially looks incredibly
dark and brutalist, reminiscent of London Zoo’s aged architecture. I always
thought of Disney attractions as being timelessly relevant and not appealing to
contemporary designs of when they were build, but we found more outdated
environments at the Transport and Ticket Centre and in Tomorrowland at Magic
Kingdom. I felt like the intentions of this section of Epcot were no longer relevant,
and possibly never was? I know little of the park’s history, so my opinions are
purely objective to my experience in early 2013. Who in their right mind would
pay that much for what is essentially a museum?
